Erykah Badu

Mama's Gun

motown

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Nine months after her triumphant 1997 debut, Baduizm, Erykah Badu released a live album containing only two new songs. Since then, she has focused on raising the son she had with her then-boyfriend, OutKast rapper Andre "Dre" Benjamin, turned in a strong performance in Cider House Rules, moved from New York back to her native Dallas, and contributed to several movie soundtracks and albums by friends such as The Roots. But writer's block and single motherhood kept delaying her own album, and even after she finished it, she continued tinkering with the results until barely two weeks before its release. Yet Mama's Gun shows few signs of being worried over. Produced mostly by Badu, its hard New York beats underpin smooth Southern melodies, with grooves melting seamlessly into one another. As always, she gets a strong, neo-soul sound with few instruments and uses her voice to full effect. Meanwhile, her eclectic, highly visual lyrics often remain elusive even as they call for black and feminist pride (she addresses her fondness for wordplay in ". . . & On," a continuation of her first hit). The album opens with the crashing rise and fall of "Penitentiary Philosophy," which is as close to rock as she's ever come. On the funky, start-and-stop "Booty," she's preaching and teaching. On "Cleva," she insists that she be judged on brains rather than beauty. The bluesy "Bag Lady" admonishes a woman who can't let go of her emotional baggage, while "Time's a Wastin" dispenses homespun wisdom of a more universal kind. The scatting "In Love With You," her duet with Stephen Marley (Bob's son), couldn't be more buoyant, but she also catches the late-night melancholy of the jazz singer on "Orange Moon" and "Green Eyes." In short, Mama's Gun was worth the wait, sustaining a satisfyingly consistent atmosphere with remarkably diverse material.

Kissinger

Charm

wci records

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Kissinger's Music is like Pop Rocks candy: sugary, crunchy, and slightly explosive. It shouts Austin Powers: all exaggerated moves, gadgets, sleek cars, mod clothes, and girls, girls, girls. It's the soundtrack to a mall-kid's life, an episode of Dawson's Creek, and a John Hughes film all rolled into one. These are compliments. You see, Kissinger is all about chutzpah, sex appeal, and comic flair. Produced by John Croslin (Guided by Voices, Pavement, and Spoon), Charm is just that: ten devil-may-care ditties that wrap in half an hour. Leading the Austin cast is Chopqper (pronounced Chaw-purr), whose gangly frame dangles over his five-string guitar as if he were a praying mantis, aided by guitarist Steve Garvey, drummer o3, and bassist Lucky. There's substance to match the style, especially in the bouncy, "Consider Bridgette," which hurls along on Garvey's meaty, reverberating guitar, and "Kat," with Peyton Place lyrics masked by a sprightly melody. And for all their posturing, the rough-and-tumble ode to pompous musicians, "Rock n Roll Asshole," proves that Kissinger doesn't take the game too seriously.

Barbara K

Ready

fire sister

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Austin's Barbara K is something of a late bloomer. Now 43, she's just getting her singer-songwriter card punched. Since the early eighties, she allowed the songwriting half of the equation to take a backseat to marriage, motherhood, and the unenviable task of holding together Timbuk3, her quirky combo with husband Pat MacDonald that crashed through the gates of one-hit wonderland in 1986 with "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades." Five years after the dissolution of both the band and the marriage, K has channeled the fear, doubt, and guilt she admits to in Ready's liner notes into a remarkable song cycle hinging instead on love, intuition, and empowerment. Although the instant likability of K's voice could make either the title track or "My Name Is Truth" a nice fit on adult alternative-radio playlists, there are also enough surprisingly thick grooves and five-minute-plus adventures to keep it just left of center. Better yet, there's a sense that genuine conviction and experience punctuate each verse and chorus. Whether you chalk up that realness to the wisdom of age or simply the belated payoff of patience, the overall strength of the songs makes Ready quite timeless.

Rodney Crowell

The Houston Kid

sugar hill

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It's easy to forget that Rodney Crowell is a Texas singer-songwriter and solo artist. He lives in Nashville and doesn't trip over himself to write about bluebonnets or Huntsville. He has made nine albums but is particularly famous as a tunesmith (hits for everyone from Bob Seger to Lee Ann Womack) and producer (ex-wife Rosanne Cash). On this, his first record in four years, Crowell strips down himself and his sound, rediscovering the core of his artistry while disproving Thomas Wolfe to boot. Inspired by the rough neighborhoods and rougher home life of Crowell's Bayou City youth, The Houston Kid is a collection of vivid memories and haunting story-songs that moves gracefully between the bitter and the sweet. Traces of violence, alcohol, and death are sketched out with bare-bones musical beauty, while sunnier reminiscences come to life via a light-touched roots-rock vibe. On "I Walk the Line (Revisited)," a clever but shameless exercise in nostalgic fun, the Man in Black himself shows up. And on the spoken, grimly ironic outlaw song "Highway 17," Crowell even gets that Huntsville reference taken care of.

Johnnie Taylor

Lifetime

stax

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A bible thumper, a blues belter, an R&B shouter, a smooth lounge-lizard crooner, Johnnie Taylor played his many roles with gusto. He served up his sanctified soul from his mid-fifties gospel beginnings all the way through 1976's "Disco Lady," yet his long career was rife with contradictions. Idolizing singers Sam Cooke and R. H. Harris, Taylor succeeded them in the Soul Stirrers—and was subsequently thrown out for drug offenses. He claimed another similarly named singer's hit, bluesman Little Johnny Taylor's "Part Time Love," when the other Taylor couldn't get on the road. And despite a string of his own successes, he never became a household name. Taylor, who spent his last three decades as a Dallas resident, had the voice, the looks, and even the producers. His tendencies to cozy up to less than great material held him back, yet hearing his music sequentially on this three-CD retrospective, Taylor soars on both the ordinary and extraordinary. When he stepped up to the microphone, he gave it his all, and at his best, there was no one better.